the world war had belonged for a while to one of the new
nationalities. Owing to unsettled European conditions she had never
since been quite sure what she was. The shop in which she and her
husband performed their daily stint was dim and ghostly, and peopled
with suits of armor and Chinese mandarins, and enormous papier-mache
birds suspended from the ceiling. In a vague background many rows of
masks glared eyelessly at the visitor, and there were glass cases full
of crowns and scepters, and jewels and enormous stomachers, and
paints, and crape hair, and wigs of all colors.

When Perry ambled into the shop Mrs. Nolak was folding up the last
troubles of a strenuous day, so she thought, in a drawer full of pink
silk stockings.

"Something for you?" she queried pessimistically. "Want costume of
Julius Hur, the charioteer."

Mrs. Nolak was sorry, but every stitch of charioteer had been rented
long ago. Was it for the Townsends' circus ball?

It was.

"Sorry," she said, "but I don't think there's anything left that's
really circus."

This was an obstacle.

"Hm," said Perry. An idea struck him suddenly. "If you've got a, piece
of canvas I could go's a tent."